Railway wagon factory to come up near Berhampur

Kolkata/ Berhampur: The proposed railway wagon factory of the ministry of Railways is likely to set up near Berhampur in Ganjam district. The State government has identified about 101 acres of land at Sitalapalli, about 15 km from here, for this purpose.

Union Railways minister, Mamata Banerjee had announced for setting up of a railway wagon factory in the state during her budget speech in the parliament. The proposed factory will be set up under the public private partnership (PPP) mode, where the state government will provide the required lands.

“Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik has already written to Banerjee about the selection of the site for the proposed factory” said a senior government officer. Patnaik has also asked her to take necessary steps to start work on the project.

“The Railways needed 100 acres of land for the purpose and we have identified a 101acre patch”, he added. The land coming under Berhampur tehsil is government land, sources said. The proposed site is about 1.5 km from Jagannathpur station. Tata Steel is setting up an Industrial Park near the proposed site.

The ruling BJD legislators from Ganjam district have hailed the government decision. “The government has rightly selected the site for the railway wagon factory, where several other industrial units like the steel plant and industrial park are coming up” said Pradeep Kumar Panigrahi, local MLA. “The people of the district will be benefited by the project” added MLA (Berhampur) Ramesh Chandra Chyau Patnaik.

After joint inspection of at least four sites in different places of Ganjam district by the officials of the East Cost Railway and Ganjam district administration, finally the site near Sitalapalli was selected.

The detail project report for the proposed factory would be worked out by the Railways ministry after which the ministry would float bid inviting the companies to participate in the project.

The legislatures urged the Railways ministry to start the process for the setting up of the wagon factory without any further delay.